


In the Wavering Wood

by WarriorBeeoftheSea



Series: Carry On Countdown 2019 [7]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Carry On Countdown (Simon Snow), DEC 01 - WLW, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:02:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21614260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorBeeoftheSea/pseuds/WarriorBeeoftheSea
Summary: She leaned against her tree and crossed her arms. "Aren't you supposed to want to kiss a boy?"I nodded then, and shrugged. "Yeah, but I don't."
Relationships: Ebeneza "Ebb" Petty/Dryad, Ebeneza "Ebb" Petty/Fiona Pitch, Ebeneza "Ebb" Petty/Original Character(s)
Series: Carry On Countdown 2019 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557757
Comments: 12
Kudos: 70
Collections: Carry On Countdown 2019





	In the Wavering Wood

**Author's Note:**

> "Mostly my sister talks about the school. The grounds. The goats. The kids. That dryad she’s been mooning over since sixth year..."

I like to meet her in the Wood when I can. When she'll _let_ me. I'll slip out of my hut after dark and wander near her tree. If she wants to see me, she'll come to me.

Sometimes it's a long time before she'll see me.

I think we had a row during my 7th year. She refused to see me for six months. I went out to the Wood every single night, calling out to her, asking her to come back.

I never found out what made her do that. It's hard to say with nymphs. Maybe she found out about how I'd kissed three girls the summer before, all classmates of mine. Or maybe she just was tired of me.

When I first found her and realized I wanted her, she wouldn't kiss me. I asked. Repeatedly.

_"How old are you?"_

_"I'll be seventeen in three months."_

She narrowed her eyes at me and floated higher into her tree, sighing. _"So you're sixteen."_

I nodded.

_"Even by your mortal standards that is exceedingly young."_

I cocked my head at her playfully. I'd been told I was cheeky.

_"How old are you, then?"_

_"I am five hundred years old."_

_"Isn't that exceedingly young for a dryad?"_

I grinned at her then, and I think that maybe that's when I actually won her over. (Although she didn't let me know until a year later.)

She wouldn't tell me her name. And she never asked mine.

_"Do dryads have names?"_

She'd look at me like I was especially stupid, when I'd ask questions like that. And she'd change the subject.

_"Why do you keep coming to see me?"_

I didn't know how to lie or conceal anything, so I didn't. _"I think you're beautiful, and I want to kiss you."_

She leaned against her tree and crossed her arms. _"Aren't you supposed to want to kiss a boy?"_

I nodded then, and shrugged. _"Yeah, but I don't."_

I wasn't sure if dryads even kissed. Or wanted to kiss. Or understood what it meant to kiss. I wasn't sure I understood either. I'd never kissed anybody, boy _or_ girl.

Or dryad.

I wanted her to be my first kiss. But an immortal being has more patience than a hormonal teenage girl.

I did actually kiss three girls the summer before 7th year. Two were in the same night. (It was drunken experimentation, that time.) The third girl turned out to actually like girls, but didn't like _me_ enough to admit that. But she did like me enough to let me put my hand in her bra.

I knew I wanted my dryad. I wanted her so much it hurt, but after touching those other girls, kissing them, putting my hands all over them and making them squirm... I knew exactly what I was.

_"I'm a lesbian,"_ I told Nicky. (I always told him everything.)

And then I'd lie in bed at night thinking the word. Again and again.

And I'd think about my dryad. _My_ dryad. Do dryad's love? Do they _want_?

I wanted to know what her skin felt like. I knew it would be different than the soft, warm, _mortal_ flesh I'd already held in my hands. _"Those girls are exceedingly young, like you,"_ I'd imagine her saying.

I did ask her what her skin felt like, just once. (Not as many times as I asked for a kiss.) It was right before she stopped seeing me.

She leaned towards me and pressed her rough palm to my cheek. It was cold and hard, but sparking with magic, and it made me feel warm. So _warm_ through my whole body. I closed my eyes and leaned into it, and she settled the pad of her thumb over my lips. I kissed it.

Then she pulled away and looked at me hard for a long moment, and then faded into her tree.

The girl from the summer (the one who was like me) came to me later and asked me to spell her memory away. The memory of that night when I kissed her. And touched her.

_"I don't know how to do that,"_ I lied. (Selfishly, I wanted to hold onto that memory, and it only felt real if it was shared.)

She sat down heavily and sighed. _"If you won't take it away, please give me more."_ And then she kissed me. Again. And I gave her more.

I don't remember if I thought about my dryad while we were hidden in that dark classroom. I don't remember if I thought about anything at all. Aside from the scrape of the rough stone floor on my knees, or the way her breath caught. The warm softness of her thighs against my lips, and then the way she tasted.

She held the sides of my head and squeezed me against her when she came. When I _made_ her come.

I don't think I was thinking about my dryad then.

Every night I went out looking for my dryad, but she wasn't there. And then I'd slip back into the dormitory. And find the girl who would have me. Wake her up and pull her (sleepy as she was) by the hand to a supply closet, or study lounge, or phone cubicle. And I'd ask if I could kiss her awake. Make her feel good. She almost always said yes.

Sometimes she'd push me onto a sofa and tell me she wanted to return the favor, and I'd let her. She'd lay heavily on top of me, and reach a hand between us, and she would tease me through my clothes until I had to beg her for it.

I don't feel guilty for that. My dryad and I never made any promises to each other. And I was lonely and alone, and this girl was warm and soft and I wanted her.

I tried kissing Fiona, too, then. She tasted like cigarettes, and she kissed me back. But then she pulled away from me and whispered against my lips, _"Ebb. You're not who I want."_

I was gutted. Or thought I should be. I went through the motions of what a heartbroken queer seventeen year old should do. How could Fiona not want me? (What ever made me think she _would_?)

I offered to go down on her. (Pathetic, I know.) She hesitated, but I knew she was thinking of saying yes. _"It doesn't have to be gay, Fi. It's just sensations, and orgasms. You can pretend I'm a boy."_ (So pathetic.)

_"That's not the problem,"_ she snapped. But she never would explain to me what the problem _was_.

I kept looking for my dryad, but she still wouldn't see me. I started sleeping in the Wavering Wood when I could manage, hoping she would give in. The girl I was fucking would lock eyes with me at breakfast, but she never asked why I stopped coming to her room.

I woke up one morning to the sound of my dryad's fingers scraping the edge of my weatherization spell. She stood outside, just hovering over a sliver of ice leftover after the spring thaw. (It stays dark and cold in the Wood.)

I sat up and looked at her. _"Where have you been,"_ I demanded. I wanted her to hurt. _Can she hurt the way I do?_

She didn't answer. I didn't expect her to.

Instead, she knelt in front of me, and pulled away my spell, her long fingers pinching around it like a piece of gauze. I shivered when the cold air hit me, but then she leaned closer and kissed me.

It wasn't like any of the other girls I'd kissed. She was a magickal being. Of course I knew it would be different. Her lips were cold, her skin rough. She kept her kisses light and gentle to keep from hurting me. Where a human lover would slide her lips against mine, my dryad pulled away and repositioned her lips against mine. Each long kiss secretly made up of dozens of soft tiny kisses with beginnings and ends.

But it wasn't just that. She closed her eyes and leaned into me again and again like she wasn't afraid of me. Of _this_.

_Why would anyone be afraid of me?_ I thought idly while I slipped my fingers through her mossy hair.

After a long time she pulled back and stood, before wordlessly turning from me to disappear into the Wood again.

I went back to sleeping in my bed. And I started slipping into that girl's room again. She didn't ask where I'd been, or why I was away for so long. She just clutched my hand to her and asked for _more, please, oh yes._

That's how I spent the rest of my time at Watford. Going to classes, and getting into trouble with Nicky and Fiona, and frigging a girl with my fingers or my mouth secretly in the dark. I went out to see the dryad, but she didn't kiss me again. She went back to floating in the air, staring at me with the corners of her mouth crooked up, like I was a riddle she wanted to work out. I'd ask her questions, and her eyes would sparkle, but she'd say nothing.

After Nicky left, my dryad was the only thing in my life that made sense.

And now, years later, I see her sometimes. When she'll let me. I want her to give me another kiss.

Sometimes she talks to me. _"Your young one is like you."_

_"Who, my goats?"_

She rolls her eyes. _"No. The bright burning one, with the sword."_

_"How is he like me?"_ I ask. But she just looks at me like I should understand. _"Do you mean he fancies blokes?"_

She still doesn't answer.

_"Do you fancy me?"_

I tip my head towards her, but she's already faded away.

I pay attention to Simon, and I think my dryad is right. Simon doesn't know it yet, though. I wait for him to realize and tell me. _Does he know that I understand?_ I watch him with his vampire, and I know. I _understand._

Tonight, I walk the Wood and think, while I wait for my dryad. Wait for my love. It's almost Christmas, and I want to kiss her in the snow. 


End file.
